Three Tips to Help you Capture Beauty in the Everyday Moments

By: Meredith Clark

When it comes to creating family photo albums, there can be a tendency to create a book filled with your family’s “greatest hits”, the best moments of the year, if you will. Of course, those special moments like birthdays, vacations, and that one perfect Christmas card photo are important to include, but for most of us, they really don’t do a good job of capturing the little moments that make up the majority of our lives.

#Camera#Beauty#snapshot

The other day, I was looking through a photo album with my four-year-old daughter Lizzy. As usual she skipped right past all the formal photos of her and her sister, and went right to a candid snapshot of her crying on the floor when she was about two. She’s heard the story of why I took that photo a number of times, but she always asks to hear it again, and so I told her;

“You were crying because I made us blackberry cobbler with whipped cream for breakfast one morning, can you believe that? I thought it would be a special treat, but you just wanted cereal like you had every day, and you were so mad at me that I’d made you something else!”

We both sat on the couch long after that laughing, talking, and telling stories about what Lizzy was like when she was two. To her, those are the important pictures – not the sunset sessions, not the formal portraits of her and her sister, not the perfectly composed family photos (which carefully observe the rule of thirds). To her, the little day-to-day moments really are the big things in life. They are the things that she remembers, and the more I think about it, the more I have realized that they really do belong in our family photo albums, perhaps more than anything else.
So, without further ado, here are my top three tips to help you capture the moments of beauty in the everyday:

1. Tell a Story

Look through the camera with the goal of capturing what’s happening in your life right at this moment. Maybe it’s the way your girls are sitting together, heads touching, reading a book. Maybe it’s the collection of coffee mugs on your table that speak to late nights at work. Maybe it’s the dirty feet of your kiddos hanging off the swings that speak to summers spent playing in the backyard.

Maybe it’s the collection of bottles drying on the counter that you really wish would hurry up and dry so that you could put them away and not look at them again until tomorrow. I’ve been there. Trust me when I tell you to take a picture of them before you put them away today. Because in a few years, when your kids are older and bottles are the last thing on your mind, you’ll look back on that photo and instantly be transported back to what life was really like with a young baby, counter full of bottles and all.

2. Look For Beauty Everywhere

It can be easy to overlook people, places, and things that you see every day, but there’s still beauty there if you take some time to look for it. Last fall, I was commissioned by a client to take some photos of the town that we live in. At first, I had a very difficult time thinking of any place that I’d want to photograph, because everything just felt ordinary to me. I wanted to do something unique and special, and had a difficult time thinking of how to make that happen. It took a few weeks of walking around town while holding my camera, shooting nothing, and sighing heavily before I started to be able to look at things with fresh eyes. I began to see color texture, and character, even in the old wooden house that I drive by all the time. It may be a normal and everyday thing for me, but that doesn’t mean there’s no beauty in it.

Is your dinner preparation particularly colorful? That can be beautiful. Are your kids holding hands on the couch one morning? That can be beautiful too. Is that homemade vanilla ice cream slowly dripping down a waffle cone? There’s beauty there. Those weeds outside that really need to be mowed, but in the meantime have grown into tall, prickly, textured creatures? I think they can be pretty beautiful as well.

3. Sit Back and Watch

One of the best ways to make sure that your family photos truly capture your family’s personality is to make sure that you include many candid photos. But of course, capturing true candid shots can be easier said than done, especially with children around! My best tip is to spend a lot of time sitting, watching, and holding your camera. It may not happen the first time you bring out your camera (or even the second!), but as your family realizes that you’re not going to be saying “Look right here and say cheese!” over and over, they’ll start to relax and do their own thing, and that’s when the real magic happens. Quietly pick up your camera and start shooting. You’ll start to see their real smiles and expressions, and when it comes to photos of your family and friends, those genuine smiles are always the best ones!


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How to Photograph Your Family Vacation

By: Mat Coker

In this article, I’ll show you how to photograph your family vacation starting with simple gear, creative photography tips, and the most important part – managing personalities and emotions.

“I tend to think of the act of photographing, generally speaking, as an adventure. My favorite thing is to go where I’ve never been.” – Diane Arbus

#Vacation#Family#Photography

Not every photo has to have a great big smile in it. My little girl was pretty grumpy at this moment. 

But I found something humorous about her expression as well as something artistic about the colors

and the distance between her and her shoes.

I was 9 years old on a family vacation when I first fell in love with photography. My parents let me snap some photos with their camera. From that moment on, all I could think about was photography!
In spite of how much I loved photography, I grew up taking terrible photos of our family trips, mainly because I didn’t know how to take good photos. But thanks to places like Digital Photography School, I’ve finally learned to take good photos of family adventures with my kids.

#1 – Itinerary and Gear

“By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.” – Benjamin Franklin

Your family vacation has a destination; you’re not wandering aimlessly. Your trip has a goal; perhaps adventure or relaxation. So too, should you also have a goal for your photos.
Why is a goal so important? Many families come home from a trip discouraged that they don’t have better photos of their journey. It’s easy to be distracted, lazy, or burnt out and just forget to take photos. But having a goal will keep you on track.

When my family took our first long road trip together I was determined to document the entire journey. This would also be my first big photography project.

Anticipation is one of the best parts of a trip. During the weeks of pre-trip excitement, consider what excites you most about your destination. Jot down some notes about things you’d like to photograph. Keep those notes in your camera bag and check them off as you travel.
Write the list when you feel most inspired and then it will guide you in the midst of vacation chaos when you are feeling rushed and less inspired.

Pack Lightly

Try to bring along as little photography gear as possible. Your kids will be asking you to hold their coats and hats, you’ll be carrying souvenirs, the last thing you want on top of that is a mountain of gear in an extra large camera bag.

This was my main gear for a trip to the Canadian East Coast; a camera and rubber boots! I also had a 

tripod but almost never used it. It was a pain to carry around and set up. I’d rather be free to move and

have fun with the kids than being loaded down with camera gear I won’t even use.

Here is a list of my favorite gear for traveling light on day trips and longer vacations.

• Wide-angle lens
• Telephoto lens
• Underwater camera housing
• Spare batteries
• No tripod

The wide angle lens is perfect for landscapes, the telephoto lens for those far-off sights, and the underwater camera housing is perfect for beaches and oceans.
Remember, traveling light allows you to be free in the moment, instead of wrestling with gear. Some photographers constrain themselves to only one camera body with 1-2 lenses. This forces them to think more creatively about the scenes and moments in front of them rather than fussing over gear decisions.

This photo was taken with my underwater camera housing. The ocean was so cold I was numb from

 the waist down!

#2 – Creative Ideas

“For me, the camera is a sketchbook, an instrument of intuition and spontaneity.” – Henri Cartier-Bresson

There is a lot that can be photographed on your family vacation. Always keep your camera handy rather than having it packed away in a hard to reach spot. There will be so many little moments to capture and you’ll get pretty discouraged if you miss them because your camera is packed away.
These 5 creative tips will guide you as you photograph your family vacation.

1. Photograph from inside the vehicle or plane

My wife and I journeyed to the south-west for one last trip before becoming parents. The desert was

hot but the mountains were cold! We brought a tiny stove with us to make hot chocolate along the way.

Depending on the nature of your trip, you may spend a lot of time inside a vehicle. Don’t waste the chance for some unique photos.
A view from inside the vehicle adds a different perspective to your photos. If every photo is shot from the same perspective or angle they will be boring. You want your friends and family to be excited as they flip through your photo book.

Driving mountain roads is my favorite part of every trip. I’m always torn between being the driver or being the passenger and taking photos.

Storms can be a beautiful part of the journey. Especially when you’re nice and snug inside the car!

We had a friend who was training to be a pilot and took us to breakfast on a plane!

Driving toward the Midwest United States, one black cloud hung over an otherwise cheerful sky. 

Maybe it was warning us that the next time we took a trip like this there would be two screaming 

toddlers in the back seat!

2. Locations and Landscapes

You’ll likely visit many beautiful landscapes during the day. But how would that same landscape look during beautiful evening light? Revisit some locations to take photos at different times of the day.

This is Monument Valley during the harsh light of midday.

This is Monument Valley during the beautiful evening light.

This is Hall’s Harbour in the evening light.

This is Hall’s Harbour in the harsh light of the day.

Many of us take pictures of family members simply standing beside landmarks or landscapes. But there has got to be a more creative way of documenting the places and things you see.
Try photographing candid or natural moments while working landmarks and landscapes into the background.

Here we are as a family. Do you know where this is? It could be any body of water in the world. I’m

glad we have this photo, but I had to get more creative with my backgrounds.

I loved the charm of these colorful East Coast homes, but I didn’t want photos of random houses. So

I made these homes part of the background instead of being the focal point of the photo. The bigger 

story is about my kids having a blast throwing rocks into the bay and the homes are part of the beautiful

scenery.

I have many photos of my kids looking at the camera on vacation. But I wanted something more

creative. How about a silhouette with interesting framing?

Here is a simple question that will help you take better photos of the places you visit. Ask yourself, what is the essence of that place? Why do you love it so much?

I had many beautiful (and not so beautiful) photos of Hall’s Harbour. I wasn’t satisfied with any of

them and I wasn’t sure why. One evening I saw this couple come walking along and start skipping 

stones. That was it! That was the essence of this place; peace, solitude, skipping stones. This is a far 

more personal photograph to me.

In Summerside, Prince Edward Island, the vastness of the ocean overwhelmed me. That was the

essence of the place to me. No matter where you go on PEI, you are surrounded by the ocean. I 

composed this photo to portray that vastness. A tiny lone lighthouse in the distance.

When you’re among the massive rock formations in Utah, you feel very small and vulnerable.

Niagara Falls is one of the most nostalgic places on earth for me. It’s where I first came to love 

photography as a child. The viewfinder is an icon for travelers, and Niagara Falls is one of the most 

recognizable sights in the world. The slight misfocus, the grain, the black and white, all work toward 

capturing the essence of Niagara Falls for me; memories.

This is Monument Valley during the beautiful evening light.

Visit locations at different times of the day, think creatively rather than making your family stand beside things, and consider the essence of the place you’re in.

3. Moments

You’ll be busy photographing the obvious landscapes and big moments of your trip. But you will experience many little unexpected moments in those places. Photograph these odd moments too. You’ll find them to be very meaningful moments and love talking about them when you look back at your photos over the years.

My kids loved their first trip to Niagara Falls and I loved sharing that place with them. It was also their

first time using an escalator (a moving set of stairs). They rode it over and over. I love this low angle 

perspective and how the main lines converge in the center of the photo.

My two-year-old daughter was being so quiet in the backseat. But you know when a toddler is being

quiet they might be up to no good! She had discovered the tube of sunscreen and applied it liberally!

Needless to say, she did not get a sunburn that day. If this had happened earlier in the trip I would have

freaked out. But by this point, I had learned to relax no matter what happened.

4. Food

Often you will experience new foods on your journey. Whether you like the food or not, photograph some of it. Viewing the photos of food will instantly trigger memories of the meals you shared.

We tried lobster for the first time! The sun was shining directly on it, giving such deep color to the

photo.

Fish and chips is a must on the East Coast. The dinner was so good I forgot to take a picture until it 

was too late!

5. Hotels, campsites

Hotels and campsites are a blast for kids to explore! Make sure to capture some photos during downtime at the places you sleep.

After a 10 hour day on the road, my son discovered just how fun beds in a hotel room can be. He was 

just barely able to leap the chasm between the two beds. He may forget the boring scenery, but he’ll 

love this memory.

Bathed and changed into fresh jammies, my daughter sits at the window with her nose pressed against

the screen.

Kids being crazy with our shoes while we pack for the next part of our journey.

At this point, if you’ve packed light (including your photo inspiration list) and taken note of some creative ideas, you’ll be set to take some great photos along the way.
But one thing threatens to ruin your photos and your trip – emotions.

#3 – Managing Personalities and Emotions

“Tears and sweat often bring out the best in us.” – Mister Rogers

Every family is different, but most families deal with a certain amount of drama on their trips. Learning how to deal with drama and negative emotions is critical for having a better time with your family and taking better photos.
Consider the fact that you won’t be in the mood to take photos if you are grumpy and your family won’t want to be in photos or do anything fun if they are grumpy. My family learned this lesson the hard way.

Everything started out fine on our trip to the East Coast. Filled with the anticipation of the journey, 

we had books and snacks and things to do in the car.

But my goal of a family adventure and a beautiful photography project is quickly met with a reality 

check. Our kids are 2 and 4 years old and we’re crammed into a little car – more often than not, it feels

like a disaster.

My wife and I thought that we could easily relive the adventurous trips we took before we had kids.

But the reality was now very different. We had to plan for shorter days of driving, more motel stops, 

earlier bedtimes and lots of relaxed downtime.

But no matter what we tried, the first half of our trip was just a disaster. Not even a relaxed day at the

beach was any fun. The ocean winds blasted us with sand. We couldn’t enjoy ourselves for a moment. 

Even I couldn’t keep pretending to have fun. At one point our little girl ran into mama’s arms with eyes

full of sand from the relentless ocean winds.

The ocean tide was always leaving behind a shoreline of muck. Normally kids love mucking about in

the mud. But not on our miserable road trip. You know you’re in trouble when nothing makes your 

kids happy anymore. By this point in the trip, I was sure I’d have nothing but tear-filled photos for my

project.

A week into the trip we were at our wit’s end. Finally, one Sunday, we collapsed in anger and

exhaustion and slept the day away. We woke up to the realization that this trip was a disastrous idea. 

At this point, I didn’t even care if I got photos or not. I just wanted my family to survive without hating

each other.

Something happened when we let go of chasing new locations and perfect photos. We admitted defeat 

and just stayed in one place for a while. We actually fell in love with a nearby harbor tucked away 

from other tourists. Halls Harbor was our refuge from the crowds – and ourselves.

For the first time, I finally understood what it was really going to take to make our first family vacation

a good one. We put the tourist life on hold and did the things that our kids really wanted to do – go to

playgrounds and throw rocks in the water!

Frankly, when we gave up, that’s when everything changed. We even met up with friends who had also

journeyed out east. We could talk and unload our weakness as parents, confess the disaster we had 

made of this trip, and hear words of encouragement from our friends.

Family vacations are rarely the times of rest and relaxation that we hope them to be. Between kids fighting in the backseat and parents getting more stressed every day – sometimes I wonder why we ever go on trips!
But we can turn these challenges into a chance to grow as people. I learned a lot about our kids and myself on our first family road trip together. There were sweaty, tear-filled moments but we learned to embrace them and grow as a family.

Editing Life

Long after your trip has ended, you can relive the moments – and the lessons learned along the way.
Don’t forget about your photos. Print them, hang them, let them bring you joy until your next family adventure.
I sat at the kitchen table late one night reliving our trip through all the photos I had taken. The tears in the car. The tears on the beach. The tears in the mud. I thought about how naive we had been about traveling with toddlers. How we tried everything and failed. But also how the trip had been redeemed.

Just a couple weeks after that I was unwrapping a brand new photo book I made of our trip – my first

finished photography project.

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Get Low and Aim High – How to Use Low-Angle Photography to Great Effect

By: Glenn Harper

One way you can make photos stand out is to compose them from an unusually low viewpoint. But why is low-angle photography so effective?
Good photography is hard to define, not least because there is always an element of subjectivity in judging it. Even when you have firm ideas about what great photos look like, there is no guarantee you’ll create them frequently. In fact, the more honed your tastes become, the less easily your own photos are likely to satisfy you.

#Angle Photography#Statues#Depthoffield

Shooting this Prague gate from below gave it more visual impact and a cleaner composition.

Is there any secret to taking eye-catching pictures? If so, I wish I could harness it. There’s one idea I try to bear in mind: show people things in your pictures they don’t see in their day-to-day lives. That means looking closely and seeing details, noticing the unusual, emphasizing the point of interest, keeping things simple, and knowing what to exclude. What is it you have seen and want to convey?

Statues shot from below often work well when the subject looks down at the camera.

Used creatively, low-angle photography meets the criteria of being unusual and will often make viewers look twice. However, it needs a bit more thought than just pointing the camera upwards.

Getting low, aiming high

Of course, low-angle photography isn’t a radical idea in the context of photographing architecture or statues, because they will often rise above you anyway. Unless you photograph these subjects from distance, you’ll always be pointing the lens upwards. But even with these subjects, you need to get the angle of the shot right and consider what qualities you’re aiming to accentuate.

In this slightly eerie photo, the street name at the right adds extra interest and gives the picture scale.

If you’re photographing less lofty subjects such as people, animals or plants, you’ll have to get very low to make the perspective unusual. This, of course, could draw attention to you as a photographer, so you might have to shake off any inhibitions. Concentrate on the shot and you’ll soon forget about what other people think.

Architecture & statues

In the case of architecture, more ornate buildings (e.g. Gothic) aren’t always best shot from directly beneath, because all their detail becomes obscured or lost. You could photograph them that way and pick out a detail such as a gargoyle using shallow depth of field. The same can be done with statues on occasion, whereby you focus on an interesting part of the statue from below and isolate it.

Three buildings add to the enclosed feeling of this photo, while the carefully positioned clock lends it
some scale.

Modern buildings like office skyscrapers often have the benefit of windows and lines, which narrow and converge if you photograph them from immediately below. This is an effective way of directing the eye towards the top of the building. Use of diagonals is an old trick for leading the eye into the picture, but you might need something else to make the shot a great one: perhaps a dramatic sky or cloud above the building.

Using a shallow depth of field, I isolated the eyeglass in the hand of famous suffragette Emmeline
Pankhurst, London.

Camera angle

There is no obligation when standing under a building or any other subject to keep it central or horizontal in the frame. By rotating the camera, often you’ll find an angle that increases the slightly giddy impression of towering height. This effect should not be underestimated. It’s a useful trick in low-angle shooting to make the viewer feel slightly disorientated.

Left: Silhouette of Rouen Cathedral. Right: One Canada Square – the tallest building in the UK when
I shot it. The presence of a second building adds to the giddying effect.

When pointing a camera upwards inside a church or cathedral, I avoid including small sections of detail at the edge of the frame. Instead, I rotate the camera until everything in the picture looks intentional and not something I didn’t notice.

This is an obvious shot to take of the Crossing Tower in Rouen Cathedral. The main trick lies in
composition and finding an effective angle.

People

Photographing people from a low angle produces some interesting effects. If you look at old “film noir” movie stills, you’ll see a lot of shots where the camera is pointing upwards. This gives portraits a moody feel and empowers the subject because he/she towers above the photographer and, ultimately, the viewer. The downside of shooting from below is that it can be unflattering, often making subjects look broader in the body and fatter in the face.

A somewhat moody low-angle portrait. You’ll see a lot of low angles as well as low-key lighting in
old film noir movies.

You can shoot from low angles in street photography, too, whether from the hip or the ground. Be careful when shooting from the ground that you’re not invading anyone’s privacy by pointing the camera upwards—stay aware of your surroundings and watch who is entering the frame and how they are dressed.

This shot at the Venice Carnival was taken from ground level. Without any prompting, the lady in the
 middle obligingly leaned over towards the camera.

The mere act of taking street photos from a low level may not, in itself, create a successful photo (if only it were that easy). You still need to have seen something interesting or out of the ordinary and the composition must be right. You might notice a detail at ground level and juxtapose it with the people above it.

Animals & pets

Many people photograph their pets from above, but if you get down to their level you can almost humanize them. That is to say, you’ll often capture their character better than from above. Like human subjects, photographing a pet from floor level gives it more power. An example of this might be if you photograph a cat preparing to pounce—you’ll put yourself in the position of the cat’s prey.

Cats often take on that regal, aloof look when photographed from below.

Flowers

Sometimes you’ll get good results when shooting flowers from a low angle. One benefit in good weather is that you might get a plain blue sky as a background. Blue goes well with red and

yellow – the three together form a triadic color scheme. It also blends well with orange (e.g. California Poppies), since blue and orange are complementary colors.

This low-angle shot from many years ago was completely unsighted. I was aiming to contrast life
(flowers and bumblebee) with the WW1 gravestone and tragedy of war. I don’t know that I succeeded,
 but the idea still resonates.

Of course, it may not be color that inspires you to photograph flowers from below. You might want to emphasize a long stem or capture the translucent qualities of a flower’s petals against a bright sky. You might go for the dramatic effect of many flowers looming over the lens—a bit like a miniaturized forest.

These flower shots from below aim to show the sunlit semi-opaque petals as well as color and shape.
The fact that they are tall flowers makes this treatment easy even with a bulky SLR.

Trees

Trees are a prime candidate for low-angle shooting, either individually or collectively. Like buildings, you need to stand immediately below them to make the shot even slightly unconventional and maximize the effect. Such photos aren’t always striking unless there is an interesting branch formation or pattern above, so you should take care in picking a subject. Colorful foliage is an obvious thing to look out for, too, especially during fall.

I shot this mainly for its bark pattern and texture, using the blue sky as a pleasing backdrop. Interesting
branch formations or foliage colors might also prompt you to take such pictures.

Equipment

You don’t need any special equipment to shoot from low angles, but obviously a flip-out LCD screen is a useful thing to have. If you don’t have that, at least digital photography costs nothing to experiment with, so you can shoot blind until you get what you want. This was how I first took low-angle photos—with repeated unsighted exposures. A wide-angle lens might help you accentuate height sometimes with its sweeping view of the world, but this is not a necessity.
I hope this article inspires you to shoot some great low-angle photos, whatever the subject.

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